This May, Microsoft and the University of Michigan are sponsoring a two-week long game design boot camp hosted by Sid Meier, most famous for his work on the Civilization series (and my personal favorite, ‘Pirates!’).

Unfortunately it’s only for people with software development backgrounds, but the bootcamp isn’t about programming the games, it’s about designing them. From their site:

Sid Meier’s Game Design Boot Camp is a two-week intensive residential camp where a limited number of students will receive instruction on game design, develop their own games, and get hands-on advice from game design experts.

Students will individually go through all of the phases of game design and development resulting in a running game at the end of the two weeks.

There will be 1-2 hours of lecture per day followed by design activities, with extensive time for game development and implementation including critiques and advice from game experts.

Students should expect to work >10 hours/day on projects and activities.